


A Strong-Headed Man (with a brittle, weak heart)

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Pre-Series, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Sam's departure to Stanford, John knew Dean needed help, but it took things coming to a head for him to figure out what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strong-Headed Man (with a brittle, weak heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saberivojo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberivojo/gifts).



> This was written for [](http://saberivojo.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://saberivojo.livejournal.com/)**saberivojo** , inspired by some ideas she shared with me. I wrote this before seeing 8x12, which Josses some head-canon I've been carrying around for several years. No spoilers for the ep, just know that as of 8x12 this is not quite canon compliant in a minor way. Title from the song "Hello Dad" by Melissa Ferrick. This is also for the "abandoned" square in my angst-bingo.

John Winchester had seen a lot of different kinds of drunk—he’d seen them in his own daddy when he was growing up, in his friends when they were young and stupid, and in the suckers, assholes and fellow-travelers he met in bars. He’d seen a whole lot of different kinds of drunk just looking in the mirror, sometimes, and in the years since Dean first stole John’s flask and got himself sick as a dog John had been looking at different kinds of drunk in the mirror of his son’s face as well. His boy was most likely to get stupid drunk, and John did his best to steer Dean away from any real trouble. Other times he was nothing but horny drunk, and all John could do was get the hell out of his way as he zeroed in on some pretty face or other.

When John wasn’t around, which he had to admit was more times than not, he suspected that Dean was too wrapped up in making sure his little brother was okay to get that kind of drunk. Even when Sam was plenty old enough to watch out for himself, Dean was still on the job and John wasn’t about to stop him. But now Sam was gone, walked off down the road like he knew better than them, like he _was_ better than them. There’d been a mirror in that too, the way he’d walked off to the recruiter’s office with his head full of spite more than patriotism, and when he heard his daddy’s words coming out of his own mouth he wanted to take them back. But it was too late. It was always too late.

Sam was gone, and it would be a pain in the ass but John would keep an eye on him as much as he could. Sam had been itching to make a go of it on his own since before his voice changed, and in the end maybe it was better that the kid took off toward a fixed destination rather than wandering the country by himself. John told himself that Mary would’ve been proud of Sam, and that hurt, but not as much as it hurt to watch Dean. Dean was like a man who'd lost his job and his best friend all in one day, almost mourning Sam like he was dead, and if there was anything to say to make it better John sure as hell didn’t know what it was.

Even if John had known what to say, Dean wasn’t leaving any room for hearing it. The day after Sam left, John found a hunt and got them both on the road because John couldn’t stand to stay still and it sure didn’t feel like a good idea to leave Dean behind. While they were riding around together in the car, Dean was close-mouthed and moody as a teenager no matter how much he tried to avoid showing it. He was drinking too, more than John had ever seen him drink before, but every time John opened his mouth to say something about it he shook his head and stayed quiet because he didn’t have any great desire to feel like a hypocrite. Still, he hated to watch his boy numb the edges of the world like he was, and he hated knowing how much pain Dean had to be in to want that much anesthetic. _Takes one to know one,_ he thought, and he just watched Dean fall into bed at night and wake up with another hangover and reminded himself that Dean was a grown man.

There was a bar within walking distance of their motel, and Dean had headed there when they got back from doing some recon on the case that had drawn them into town. Truth be told, John wasn’t sure if there was anything supernatural going on at all, but there hadn’t been anything else to catch his eye, and it was a good enough reason to put Dean in the car and drive. John would’ve liked to crawl into a bottle himself, but with Dean so far off his game John couldn’t afford to let go. He had one drink then turned the TV to some game that could drone in the background while he worked his way through one of the books Jim Murphy had sent him. Sam would’ve had an easier time with the Latin, but this one wasn’t for Sam to see, even if he had still been there.

When Dean got back, rattling the door knob and shouldering his way through, John expected him to take a piss then fall into bed with his boots on the way he had the last two nights. John didn't like anybody watching him when he wasn't at his best and he knew Dean was no different, so he kept his eyes on his book. It wasn't until Dean kicked the bottom of the bed John was sitting on that John realized his son was in a whole different state of mind. John looked up then and leveled a glare at Dean. “What the hell was that?”

“Get up,” Dean growled, like he thought he was somebody he sure as hell wasn’t.

“You sure you want me to do that?”

“Get up,” he said again, and no matter how drunk and hurting Dean might’ve been, John wasn’t about to take that from his son. He’d thought one of the upsides of Sam leaving would be a little break from the fighting.

John set his book aside deliberately, slowly then stood up, right inside Dean’s space. “You should go take a shower and get to bed, son.”

Dean shook his head and stuck his chin out, drunk and stupid. “You could’ve stopped him from leaving. You could’ve stopped him but you just shoved him out the door. One thing you told me to do, one thing I was ever good at, and you told him to never come BACK!” The last word was a shout full of beer-breath and spittle, and John pushed Dean back out of his face.

“Nobody could’ve stopped Sam, sure as hell not me.”

The unfamiliar anger flared in Dean’s eyes. “So it’s _my fault_? Fuck you, Dad!” Dean shoved John back, and John was stunned enough to let himself be shoved. Then Dean swung his fist, and that was just about all John was going to take. He caught Dean’s fist with one hand, put his other hand on Dean’s chest and body-blocked him back against the wall. He was willing to let Dean work out some of his anger, but he wasn’t about to risk the stupid, pointless injuries that could come from a strong, trained, drunk and angry man throwing punches.

Dean was breathing heavily, his chest heaving under John’s hand, but he wasn’t struggling and his mouth was shut. “You about done?” John asked, his eyes locked with Dean’s.

“Fuck you,” Dean said again, quieter but just as intent.

John wanted to take a swing at the kid himself, but he wasn’t going to do that. “Go take a walk,” he growled, pulling back and shoving Dean toward the door. “Walk it off, sober up, and come back in here when you can do it without making me want to put you in a world of hurt. You hear me?”

The night was brisk enough that John figured it wouldn’t take long for the kid to cool down and get his head back on some kind of straight. John had done it enough times himself, gone out to walk off his anger when he was too close to doing the wrong thing. Dean glared back at him but he didn’t say anything. He walked out the door when John opened it and headed down the walkway toward the stairs. John shut the door and leaned into it, taking a few deep breaths. He stood up straight when he heard a commotion from outside, a bunch of banging that he could only assume was Dean working out his anger in some way other than walking.

“Goddamn, boy,” he muttered to himself as he pulled on his jacket and went out to get Dean under control before somebody called the cops. When he got out the door everything was quiet, but he headed toward the stairs to investigate. The old metal staircase clanged as he walked down the first few steps, then it banged like a teenage drummer as he ran down to the bottom of the stairs where Dean was sprawled unmoving.

“Aw fuck, FUCK,” John was muttering under his breath as he got close enough to see the blood on Dean’s face then knelt down next to him. “Dean?” He put a hand on Dean’s chest, the other at Dean’s throat, and Dean was breathing, his heart was beating, there was nowhere near enough blood for a busted open skull. “Son? Dean?” He patted the side of Dean’s face, and Dean woke up with a jerk then curled onto his side with a moan.

“’m sorry,” he moaned, his face turned down toward the concrete. “’m sorry.”

John tilted Dean's head toward the light, trying to get a look at what was bleeding. “Dean? Dean, come on. What hurts?”

"Arm," Dean moaned, still not looking at John. "'s broke."

John sighed. They were lucky Dean hadn't broken his damn neck, and that was probably down to him being too drunk to tense up. "Okay, we're gonna get you taken care of. Come on." It looked like Dean had rolled on top of his injured arm, so John got a hand in the armpit of his good arm and hauled him up slow and steady.

Halfway up, Dean shuddered and pulled away far enough to fall on his knees and heave up his belly full of whiskey and beer and bar food. Between the liquor and the pain and the conk on the head, John figured he should've been expecting as much. He kept Dean steady with a hand on his back, and when Dean was finished, sitting back on his haunches and panting with his arm pulled against his chest, John patted him on the shoulder and went to the car, relieved he had the car keys in his jacket pocket.

John drove over and parked right in front of Dean then pulled an old towel out of the trunk. He dabbed at the slowly bleeding cut on Dean's head then used the towel to splint Dean's arm against his chest. "You think you're ready to go?" Dean nodded sullenly then shivered so John wrapped his leather jacket around him then pulled him up again and walked him over to the car. In the passenger seat, Dean looked a shade less miserable but he had his eyes closed in his pale face, and John was glad he'd made a note of where the closest hospital was located.

It was late enough that there was almost no traffic, and the ER was slow enough that they didn't have to wait very long. It was strange, John thought, that for once he didn't have to make up a cover story. There were no claw marks, no bullet holes, no bruises on a kid who seemed too young for all that. Hell, Dean wasn't even underage for drinking. He was just 22, drunk as hell and beat up by a set of stairs. The strangest part was that John would've rather Dean had some hunting injury instead of this emotional mess.

The wait in triage may have been brief, but the rest of it took far longer than John had expected. They put an IV in Dean's arm--a little bit of shock, a little bit of dehydration, or at least that's what the nurse said when John asked. She was cute enough that John waited for Dean to flirt with her, even if she was closer to John's age than Dean's, and the fact that he didn't was as close to a sure-fire sign of the apocalypse as John ever hoped to see. John had to go back to the waiting room while they took Dean off to have his head and his arm looked at, and when they called him back again Dean's left forearm was in a black-covered cast and he had a small bandage on his head. He was asleep but didn't have any tubes or wires on him, so John figured everything was more or less okay.

The verdict, as delivered by a doctor who didn't look any older than Dean, was a broken arm, a mild concussion, some stitches and a shitload of bruises; they were discharging him with a script for pain pills and a pamphlet on the dangers of binge drinking. They'd given Dean something to relax him while they were casting his arm, but he woke up enough to keep his feet under him while John dragged him out to the car in the morning sunshine. When John pulled him up out of the car, Dean stood wavering at the foot of the motel stairs, looking at them like he was trying to decide whether it was worth the time and effort to burn them down. The morning was warm, but Dean still seemed cold so John had wrapped his jacket around Dean again, just tucked it around him to avoid dealing with his arm in the sling. For all that Dean was almost the same height as John, he looked awfully young; his shoulders didn't fill out that jacket yet, but John thought they would, one day.

"Come on, son." John wrapped his arm around Dean's back and guided him up the stairs to their room. He parked Dean on the side of the bed farthest from the door and went to gather up some more comfortable clothes for him, along with all the pillows in the room. Dean was probably about as numb as he was going to be; John had slipped the prescription into his pocket, but it was for the same Vicodin that he already had hanging out in their med kit so he'd given one to Dean as soon as they got to the car. The valium or whatever the hell they'd given him to set his arm wouldn't have worn off all the way, and he was somewhere on the road between drunk and hungover.

When John came back around with Dean's sweats and an armful of pillows, Dean was milk-pale, the summer's batch of freckles more conspicuous than normal, and he looked as blank and detached as an unplugged TV. Then Dean blinked, frowned, and blinked again as tears leaked from his eyes. "Aw, kid," John said under his breath, and then he sat down on the bed next to Dean's uninjured side. The mattress dipped, tilting Dean's shoulder against his, and Dean wiped his hand over his face.

"Sorry," he said, sounding exhausted but still ashamed. "M'arm hurts."

"Yeah, I know it does." John put his hand on Dean's back and looked across the room while he rubbed Dean's back in slow circles. Dean needed the privacy of not being watched as much as he needed the excuse of the pain from his injuries and the drugs in his system. When Dean started to fall asleep sitting up, John helped him into the sweats and got him under the covers with his arm propped up on pillows.

There were a lot of things John Winchester didn't know how to do. He didn't know how to make Sam stay and be content in a situation he'd been chafing against since he was old enough to know what he wanted out of life. He didn't know how to stop hunting and be an ordinary man; he'd lost that somewhere on the road more than fifteen years back. He didn't know how to avenge Mary's death, not quite, not yet. But he knew how to take care of Dean when he was busted up and couldn't remember how to put one foot in front of the other and make it through each day to the next.

John knew how because Dean had done the same for him.


End file.
